USS Clueless              Voyages of a restless mind

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Stardate 20010823.1853 (Crew, this is the Captain): One of the pleasures of baseball is that on any given game, you might observe a superhuman performance by some player. Even if the game itself turns out to not be important, watching such a performance happen can be exciting as hell. This is particularly the case when you're watching a no-hitter, a game in which the pitcher ends up not allowing the other team any hits. Every pitch becomes exciting because at any moment an opposing batter cold shatter the attempt. And no-hitters are rare.

I have been watching the Little League World Series and I have just observed a truly spectacular performance. A kid named Danny Almonte pitches for the team from the Bronx, representing New York, and a few days ago he pitched a no-hitter. Little League games go 6 innings, and even more spectacular was the fact that he pitched 16 strikeouts out of 18 outs. Nobody does that.

Well, he does, because he just did it again. Another no-hitter and another 16 strikeouts. Doing that once in a career would be spectacular. Doing it in two successive games is beyond belief. (discuss)

Update: I only saw the last part of the game, so I was mistaken about something. He did give away one hit in the game. But it was still a shutout, and he made seventeen of the eighteen outs himself, sixteen of those by strikeout. He also caught a pop-fly. This is a magnificent achievement.